Osteoporosis, the reduction of bone density, is one of the major reasons for femoral neck fractures, affecting millions of elderly people worldwide each year. It is, however, increasingly becoming a problem also for young female athletes (see, e.g., Female Athlete Triad, Switzerland. Magazine for “Sportmedizin and Sporttraumatologie” 48 (3), 119-132 (2000), the content of which is incorporated herein by reference). For the treatment of osteoporosis according to the invention, it is essential that the presence of osteoporosis can reliably be diagnosed. There are indeed a number of ways for the diagnosis of osteoporosis and the prediction of bone fracture. The most widely used is dual energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). DXA scans are primarily used to measure the areal bone mineral density. An even more reliable method, yielding directly the volume density of a bone, is computed quantitative computer tomography (see for example http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry, the entire content of which is hereby incorporated by reference).
One way to prophylactically treat osteoporosis is through the use of pharmaceuticals, which, besides being of limited effectiveness, are often hampered by serious side effects. A better solution seems, therefore, to be the use of prophylactic implants, enhancing the mechanical stability of the bone, thus providing a local and not a systemic way to address the problem. Such implants are generally introduced in either of a number of ways, such as (1) through a bore in the greater trochanter along the femoral neck axis (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 6,679,890 to Margulies and U.S. Pat. No. 6,319,255 to Grundei, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference); (2) through the intramedullary canal of the proximal femur (see for example U.S. Pat. No. 8,012,155 to Prygoski, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference); (3) through a bore in Ward's triangle (see for example US 2009/0112210 to Philippon, the content of which is hereby incorporated by reference).
It is a general feature of the prior art that the bore has been made from the side, i.e. in a plane containing the femur body, the femoral neck and the femoral head. This, however, may damage the surrounding soft tissue.
What is needed is a reliable, simple method of reinforcing osteoporotic bone. What is needed is a method that is devoid of any of the systemic side effects of drugs, while being minimally invasive to avoid soft tissue damage.